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manganese nodules have no great value? It is not like picking up big 

 diamonds, I gather. At that depth it would seem so unlikely that there 

 will be any meaningful economic exploitation that I don't know why 

 we are worrying so much about what kind of sovereignty or control 

 or regime there should be there. 



Why do we care? You indicate that there is no likelihood of wide- 

 spread exploitation of deep seabed mineral resources foreseen for at 

 least a decade. Do you see it after that ? 



I would think it very unlikely that there is anything of sufficient 

 value, except perhaps oil, at such depths. We seem to have enough to 

 worry about to get an orderly development of the resources on the 

 shelves. Why do we care about the deep sea depths one way or 

 another ? 



Dr. Cain. I think the comment on that would be like this 



Mr. Frelinghuysen. Do you think in 20 years there is going to be 

 any widespread exploitation ? Will it be economically feasible then in 

 your opinion to have a widespread exploitation of the deep sea depths? 



Dr. Cain. I would like to comment on this line of questioning as 

 follows : We are perhaps in the relationship to the deep ocean in terms 

 of knowledge about like we were at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. 

 We don't know what we have got, as when we acquired Alaska from 

 Russia some years ago. 



What we don't know is tremendously impressive to me. And yet 

 the people who know something about marine geology, including some 

 industrial people, see possibilities so that they are looking forward. 



The technology, as I stated, does not exist for deep sea mining. But 

 there is a good deal of present development of underwater technology 

 for reasons other than mining, and the next point is our history of a 

 very rapid rate of technological improvements so that things we can 

 do today would seem almost impossible a decade ago. 



Looking forward through a period of years there is, let me call it 

 hope, based on our belief in Yankee ingenuity or something like this, 

 that if the values are found to be there the technology to retrieve 

 them will not be far behind. 



I believe it is this kind of thing that has given a great many people 

 hope for the future in a vast territory about which we now don't 

 know enough to say positively what the values are. 



Mr. Frelinghuysen. Your point is, as I understand it, that we 

 should explore what kind of an asset, or what kinds of assets, we 

 have in the deep sea before we worry about the disposal or sovereignty 

 over them ? 



Dr. Cain. No ; I think we have the two combined. We are interested, 

 very much interested in acceleration of the exploration. 



Mr. Frelinghuysen, When you talk about "we" 



Dr. Cain. I am talking about the Department of the Literior. We 

 l")ecame more and more active in recent times in extending our scien- 

 tific abilities and our exploration off the continent onto the continental 

 shelf. We are very much interested in this. 



We are subsequently interested in going on to a fuller knowledge of 

 the oceans as such, including the deep ocean and the seabed. So the 

 need for knowledge is recognized and we have a great concern to 

 expand this knowledge, so that we know where we are going. 



